Dragons Games Chapter 11-1

2274 words. Next update will be longer just gotta get chapter 10 sorted and uploaded.

Chapter 11

The Choice

1

“Wait!” Cassidy yelled over the cheering. Some relatives in the audience had made their way onto the stage to congratulate their children, and in only moments the whole theatre was a mess of people. “Jim come back!”

But he wasn’t listening, disappearing into stage left, the backwall hiding him from view as he rounded it. She ran after him, her clawed feet thundering across the wood, over the spot Bernard had taken his nasty fall, but she bumped shoulders with Amelia, nearly tripping, the Lapras asking her what the hurry was. She quickly apologised, started moving again, but there were so many people, her thorny shoulders nicking anyone who she hit, which seemed like everyone.

“Cass!” she heard someone call. She looked to her right, seeing Kendra’s beaming face coming towards her. “Look who’s here!”

At first she thought it would be Jim, but instead the man who stepped beside her was none other than the principal, still wearing his signature blue suit. “Miss Oborne, yes? Splendid song of yours back there. Absolutely splendid.”

“Thank you, sir,” she replied, looking between him and the last spot she’d seen Jim.

“You play the ukelele, yes? Used to play one myself during my younger years, gave it up as you could probably tell.” She wanted to go but the verbal imprisonment was making it difficult.

“Well it’s not exactly easy,” Cassidy said, folding her hands over her stomach, waited for permission to leave.

“She’s so modest, right?” Kendra interrupted, and when the principal wasn’t looking, she shot Cassidy a look that said why are you being so rude?

“I invited a colleague here tonight who happens to be in the musical industry,” Mr. Clarke went on. “And she was just as impressed, wanted to know your details, she’s here now if you-”

“I’m sorry sir but I really have to go,” Cassidy suddenly said, murmuring an apology as she slipped between her friend and the human, taking off towards the backstage.

She trundled down the steps, moving down the hallway with the change and makeup rooms, until she reached the fire exit, pushing one of the doors aside, her scales bristling as the cold night air washed over her.

“Jim? Jim!”

She looked left, right, but there was no answer. She called out even louder, rushing out into the nearest path, but she couldn’t see him. She cursed under her breath, looking in the direction of the ovals. Perhaps he’d gone back there?

Just as she was about to go down and check, she noticed she was still wearing her pseudo-medieval costume, thinking she should probably change. No, that would take too long, better just grab her coat and hurry up and catch him.

She headed back inside, opening the door to the change room and rushing for her spare clothes. Right as she grabbed her coat, something out of the corner of her eye drew her attention, and she blinked as she recognised a black bag with a purple sleeve poking out of one of the zippers. That was Jim’s bag, she recognised it, and the sleeve was his jersey.

She bent down and picked it up, noticing his phone and textbooks inside the biggest pocket. He’d not changed clothes, it seemed, and he hadn’t taken anything with him. He wouldn’t go back to the ovals like that, would he? Not in his costume. Had he gone home, then? To confront his father, maybe?

Her shoulders sagged at that. Watching his face as she confessed, she’d never seen him so angry before, and it was all directed at her. She’d delayed and delayed, waiting a good moment to tell him, but instead she’d just made things worse, like she’d been damming a river that would only get more violent the longer she held it back. His face, his kind face she would often dream about, that had looked upon her with awe and wonder, had instead been full of venom, and it hurt, hurt so much.

She took off in a run, slipping her coat over herself as she bolted towards the fields. The drama club, her friends, whatever the principal had been talking about, none of that mattered, she couldn’t stand the thought of Jim thinking of her as some sort of monster. She had to find him.

She considered calling his father, but decided against it. She didn’t want to talk to him, and she’d rather deal with all this herself.

She followed the paths down to the lower grounds, and not for the first time tonight. There had been a sort of intermission between scenes seven and eight, as the actors had grown a sweat and needed their makeup to be redone. Fifteen minutes, that was all they had, and all that Cassidy needed. Five to get down to the ovals, five to get back. The timing would be down to the wire, but that wasn’t a new development for the drama club.

Kendra would never have agreed to it, that was why she hadn’t told her best friend what she planned on doing.

Yet she’d barely made it a third of the way before doubt overwhelmed her. What was she going to do, run out and tell him the truth right in the middle of his biggest game? He needed all his focus, she’d only make things worse, going in now.

Her footsteps heavier, she had turned around, following the paths back the way she’d come, returning to the hall. She’d tell him after, and not a second longer! She had delayed long enough, let her fear get the better of her, now was the time to admit the truth.

This should have felt like a liberating moment, yet she couldn’t shrug off the sinking feeling inside her as she returned to the set. This was just another excuse, she was still being a coward, and it shamed her…

Had that only made things worse? Should she have gone down during the break? Should she have told him at all? Yes, telling him had been the right thing to do, to live a second longer in that ignorance would only do more harm. She’d felt like she’d never get another chance again to tell the truth, so she had mustered up all the strength she could, and now he was gone…

More people than Cass had ever seen were milling about the ovals, hundreds of them working their way up the stairs and stumbling over their own feet, some of them slurring their words as they chanted warcries. The game had a tremendous the turnout, and she didn’t have to be there to tell. She and the club had heard the crowd erupt all the way from the hall, their shouts wailing in the distance before fading away for a few moments of peace.

She walked around the changing room building from the inside, the playing field on her left. The grass had been kicked up in places, betraying the spots were there had been more activity from the players, the stands ringing the oval in a rough circle. There was a fuzziness in the air, Cass looking up to see a distortion through the bright rays of the field floodlights. It was raining, she realised, water dropping down on her horns, not droplets but more of a misting spray.

She moved into the shade of the sports block, opening the Mythics locker room with a soft click. A handful of the Mythics were idling about in small groups just inside, their jerseys wet with rain and stained with dirt.

“Isaac?” she asked, spotting him on the right. She’d brought her voice down to a whisper without meaning to, the mood in the locker room demanded she keep quiet. “Where’s Jim?”

“Was gonna ask you the same thing,” Isaac replied. In the short time she’d known him he’d been bashful and rude, but he wasn’t either of those things now, it caught her off-guard. “He took off soon as we reached fulltime.”

One of the other Mythics, overhearing them, came walking over, Cass remembering his name was Matty. “Tell that boyfriend of yours to keep himself scarce, coach is looking for him, too, and he ain’t happy.”

She wanted to ask why but stopped, it was obvious – none of them were cheering, half of them was nowhere to be seen, and the Mythic supporters she’d seen on the way down had been very quiet compared to their counterparts. “You lost the game,” she said.

“Lost because of him,” Matty corrected. “We were tied at the last minute, and he had an opening, and the butter-fingers dropped it.”

“You all lost, you can’t blame everything on him,” Cassidy defended. “It’s a team effort out there, don’t be so harsh.”

“I’ll be as fucking harsh as I want,” Matty said, frowning when Isaac raised his hand at him.

“She’s right dude, I kinda screwed up too with the kick, could have been more accurate with it.”

“Could, would, should, I know I didn’t lose us the game.”

Matty turned away, some of the other Mythics giving her hard looks, sharing Matty’s frustration. As annoyed as she was at being the target of their annoyance, she couldn’t blame them for acting this way. If her play had ended terribly, she imagined she would be just as prickly.

“So no idea, then?” she asked Isaac, the young man shaking his head.

“Tell him to give me a call if you see him,” Isaac said. “He’s always been too hard on himself, tell him I’m just as much at fault.”

“Has something like this happened before?”

“Not in a game, nah. But there was Lara… she was his ex,” he added when she gave him a confused look.

“His ex? Never told me about her.”

“Who would? Not exactly something you just bring up with your new derg buddy.”

She bid him farewell, heading back out into the night. There was nothing for it, she had to call Jim’s father, he might have gone home if he wasn’t on the campus, and she should check before she turned the whole campus upside down.

She scrolled through her contacts, until Jim’s father was highlighted, his name framed by the blue select box. She had to force herself to hit the call button, he’d only ever contacted her, and the last time had been a few days before the finals match, the dragoness remembering what he’d said to her.

Keep him focused on that game.

The ringtone repeated twice before it was answered, Cass holding the phone up to her earhole.

“You told him,” the voice on the other end started. It was muffled, as though the speaker had a blocked nose. “That wasn’t part of our arrangement.”

“I don’t give a damn about arrangements,” she snapped. She was done with the niceties, the truth was out now, and she might as well go all in. “You made a deal with my parents, not me. Have you seen him, or not?”

“I’ve seen him, alright, more than that.” He chuckled, the laugh delving into a coughing fit that made her wince from the receiver. “All that training did his arms pretty good. Boy’s got some punch.”

She blinked at that, had they gotten into a fight? She could never imagine Jim hitting his dad, the way he talked about him. Another thing that was her fault.

“Is he there now?” she asked.

“No. Took off after Marla called the police,” he said. Whoever Marla was Cassidy didn’t care. “Didn’t stop to say where. Give him a message from me when you see him.”

“How can I? I don’t know where he is.”

“Of course you do, you know him better than I do, I’d wager.”

She sighed, her head shaking as she relented. “What message?”

“Tell him… tell him, I’m sorry.”

“… That’s all? You’re sorry? If he hit you I doubt an apology will change much now. And I don’t blame him.”

“Tell him to come back,” he continued. “I’ve sent the police away, and you should come to, we’ve all got a lot to discuss now.”

“Yeah, we do,” she admitted. “But with all due respect, you’re the last person I’d send him to. I need to talk to him, and the further we are from you, the better.

“Why begin with ‘all due respect’, but then say the something disrespectful? Told your father the same thing. Listen very closely,” he added, his voice lowering. “you will bring him back here, hear me? I’m his family, not you.”

“Not from where I’m standing,” she said, hanging up on him. She placed her phone in her coat pocket, hitting the power button when it started ringing. After a few moments of consideration, she retraced her steps up to the campus proper, pushing aside those who got in her way. Contrary to what she’d said on the phone, she did have an idea of where Jim was.

There was only one place he could be.